Slovenia has an above-average European scientific results, innovation system is rated just below the European average, while the per-capita shop GDP barely reaches the two thirds of the European average. Slovenian economic competitiveness is low. Research activity is not intended for itself, therefore scientific as well as the socio-economic effects are important too. Therefore the paper covers the analysis of socio-economic effects of research that can be divided into economic, political/social and educational. In the paper we firstly discuss the schematic and systematic methodology and assessment of the socio-economic effects of the research. The international waymarks of planning and monitoring of the research effects is presents as well. The paper further analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the Slovenian innovation system and isolate the good practices of the successful countries and countries which are progressing rapidly. Therefore, the European Innovation Index and the Global competitiveness index will be studied and the detail that identify the reasons for successes and failures of the United States and provide guidance on how to be more successful with the help of the socio-economic effects of science and/or research and development.
COBISS.SI-ID: 39059461
We examined how the recent global economic crisis and the necessary cuts in public expenditure affected the funding for tertiary education in European countries. We clustered the countries into two groups with respect to the severity of the impact of the global crisis on their economies. Then, we comparatively studied the changes in the funding of tertiary education during the recent economic crisis. We found that tertiary education was less exposed to austerity measures than the education sector as a whole and, in the group of countries that were more affected by the crisis, several countries decreased the share of public expenditure on tertiary education. We also found that, on average, countries with high pre-crisis public spending on tertiary education increased the share of GDP for tertiary education more than those with low pre-crisis spending. Overall, the results of our research show how the governments of different countries adjusted public funding for tertiary education, including finding of research, during the economic crisis.
COBISS.SI-ID: 39346693
This article analyses how political preferences, which are co-determined by the beliefs of decision-makers and influences of interest groups and the general public, affect the decisions to maintain or cut public funding for tertiary education and research (TE) during the economic crisis.. Our sample presents 29 European countries which we divided into two groups depending on the level of public funding for TE before the crisis, which we used as a measure of revealed political preferences. We then observed the differences in changes of TE public funding during the crisis between these two groups of countries using five different indicators. Three of the five indicators show that countries with a stronger political preference for public TE funding cut their spending on TE to a lesser extent (or even increased spending) during the economic crisis. Thus, political preferences, also during the economic crisis, significantly influence decisions regarding the funding of TE, more specifically, to what extent the various areas of public spending will be adapted to harsher public financial constraints.
COBISS.SI-ID: 39320069